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For what my opinion is worth, Farage is not a fascist, by traditional definitions. What is happening now is not a rerun of the 1930s. However Farage is ideologically & organisationally embedded deep in an unprecedented tide of global neo-nationalism which locks arms with >
far right leaders & activists across the world including Putin, Trump, Orban & Bolsonaro & neo-nationalist parties in pretty much every country, who between them reify a nebulous populist ideology into a transnational movement the likes of which the world has never seen before. >
The movement is characterised by virulent racism, xenophobia and cultural isolationism married to an extreme corporate libertarianism. The aim is to build a world of physical & political walls, where people are fenced in, while wealth & power are freed to billow upwards. >
I think it is a mistake to imagine that 21st century neonationalism is analogous to 20th century fascism. It's just as much of a mistake to imagine it is any less dangerous & frightening for that. No, we are not heading towards World War II & the Holocaust again. >
But we may well be heading for something on a comparable scale of disaster (with climate crisis just one likely flashpoint) and while the mainstream media & culture continues to fuel the phenomenon by treating characters like Farage & Trump as colourful novelties >
who can be given every platform, every opportunity to trumpet their lies & systematically dismantle the assumptions & old myths that underpin liberal democracy, it is incumbent on the rest of us to resist the spread of this poisonous trend by calling out the dangers, >
and throwing a spanner in the works of this terrifying machine, at the ballot box, in the streets & workplaces, with the most effective tools to hand, whether those be arguments, mass protests or the occasional well-aimed milkshake.
/ENDS
/ENDS
